


in fair verona, where we lay our scene

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cassian of the House of Capulet, F/M, Jyn of the House of Montague, some minor appearances by other characters but this is really about the main two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 07:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15262488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: “No matter,” she breathes when he finishes his sorry tale of failure. Her eyes are shining, a touch of defiance in the face of death as she tries a small smile, hopeless.“No matter?!” he echoes, gripping the cell bars tightly. She loops her fingers through his, clutching the steel as she speaks, full of emptiness.“I was foolish enough to think I could heal our city. Make my cousin’s death mean something. Clear my father’s name.” She pauses, dropping her eyes from his as he protests. “Perhaps when they kill me, Verona might be healed,” she adds, and steps closer. The bars are so wide she could rest her head against his chest with ease. “And you can go and be happy.”“I won’t behappy,” he says, his voice breaking. He doesn’t ever break, but now he can feel all hope slipping away from him; now, as the hour ticks closer.





	in fair verona, where we lay our scene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grexigone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grexigone/gifts).



> I always envisioned this with Jyn in Benvolio's role and Cassian in Rosaline's role. The idea of Jyn crossing cultural norms for clothing and hobbies was too good to pass up. As a result, Jyn is canonically bi in this fic, and I envisioned Cassian as demi/gray-ace. Thanks to anghraine for putting that in words for me first! Knowledge of the SSC show is helpful but not really necessary.

She’d been jumpy when she found him, rightfully so. The guards had been searching the whole city for her, intent on disposing with the troublesome Montague once and for all, and the sight of her brazenly standing under his balcony had thrown his harried nerves into another spiral.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he’d whispered, trying not to call any attention to them. “The whole city’s looking for you.” 

( _I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re safe._ )

Her tale spilled out of her in a hurried rush and yet all of it had fallen away as she made her final appeal.

“Please come with me,” she’d asked, and he’d wavered. He’d thought of his sister, and his duty to the city and the crown, and how this would likely ruin any chance they could ever come home – and then she’d spoken again.

“You’re all I have,” she’d said, a final footnote. Her voice had broken on the last word, and at that his every internal protest had fallen silent. “You know the truth, and you’re all I have.” 

(Looking back, he couldn’t fathom another way.)

+

He’d first seen her at Juliet’s ill-advised wedding, her elder cousin her only trusted witness. Jyn had stood beside the boy, Romeo, and he’d been struck less by the fact of her masculine clothing than by the sword comfortably slung at her hip.

Maybe a lot more had changed in Verona while he’d been away than he’d thought.

“I’m sure,” he said casually, “as a social dissenter, it must thrill you to no end to see the rules of Veronan society flouted before your very eyes.” It was both invitation and assessment, and he couldn’t help how his mouth quirked as she scoffed at him.

“As it happens, my Lord,” she said, her voice clipped, “I am both a dissenter _and_ a Montague.”

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her tone. “You don’t approve of this union?”

That, it seemed was all they were to have in common – and if some part of him was disappointed that she was a Montague, and therefore as forbidden knowledge as the union before him, he pushed it aside.

(He tried.)

+

She’d disliked the idea of Romeo marrying a Capulet, and she liked the idea even less as it proceeded under cover of night. She liked it less and less as the days proceeded, taking one beloved friend and cousin from this life and into the next. When Romeo’s death is announced to the household, she slips away through the back alleys she knows so well and into Carolina’s bedroom.

(She doesn’t come out for two days.)

When she does, her uncle berates her ceaselessly and orders her to _dress properly_ before wrenching her sword from her holster and tossing it down the stairs with a painful clatter.

“You won’t be needing _this_ ,” he snarled, tossing it down the stairs, “and you’ll soon be another’s problem.”

The door slammed past the flash of his white cloak and Jyn opened her mouth, lifted her neck, and let out a silent scream that echoed in her ears if nobody else’s. Her door was locked, her window barred, and though scattered across the city, her friends were dead.

(She’d escaped before – this time she’d escape for good.)

+

Cassian had known Draven at school, and known he’d wanted to rule differently from his father’s legacy. Draven had even promised him a position in the city council, as a member of one of Verona’s oldest and most respected families. Now it’s all he can do to get an audience with the prince-turned-king. Through the audience, Draven sidesteps his concerns and insists that Cassian can do more good with this marriage than sitting on the council. Perhaps, one day. Once the conflict between his family and the Montagues has subsided.

So in fact the audience does him no good and just days later he ends up running for his life with his new fiancée through the streets of Verona, chasing after someone who’d attacked them. It’d been years since he’d fought anyone hand to hand and he’d been shocked into stillness as Jyn stole his sword and fought the attacker on her own, sidestepping the broken roofing under her feet with careful practice, dispatching him to the edge and exposing the plot before he robbed them of future intelligence.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he asks as she leans over the edge.

“My father taught me,” she says briefly, and then looks at the sword in her hands. It’s clear she misses the one she’d had before; the one she’d worn at the doomed wedding and before she’d been shoved into an uncomfortable looking dress.

“You can keep it, if you like,” he says quietly, gesturing at the sword. Her hands clench tightly over it before she shakes her head.

“My uncle will only take this one too,” she says, and her fingers linger on the steel as he takes it back. The look she wears is a mix of anger and loss mixed with the vigor of a swordfight, and an impulse takes him.

“Trust goes both ways,” he says, handing her his dagger instead, echoing the words she’d said to him when they’d hatched their first failed plot. Her hands close around the weapon eagerly, and without hesitation she lifts up her dress past her knee to slide the dagger through her garter and over her stocking, and he does not flip his eyes skyward quite fast enough.

“Thank you,” she says, balanced on the edge of a rooftop, freer than she’s been in years, and meets his eyes.

(It’s an image that stays with him, and never quite leaves.)

+

She’d wanted to run. She’d planned to run, when Cassian had offered her the carriage in the night to spirit her away, to be Sister Jyn or whoever else she could imagine.

(She’d gone to Carolina, and Carolina had said no.)

It was a blow that had taken her days to recover from, but faster than she’d expected. It was hard to be focused on heartbreak when someone was trying to kill you, and in the balance Jyn found other distractions and other excuses to leave the house. Now that she was safely betrothed, her uncle’s grip had loosened, if only a little, and she met Cassian for courtly strolls that turned into espionage and adventure. 

And time with Cassian was not…nearly as unpleasant as she’d braced herself for. She’d expected a haughty Capulet who looked down on Montagues for their new wealth, a Capulet who felt he was doing her a favor, a Capulet who would share nothing in the world with her.

He was none of that, and if she was being totally honest, refreshingly familiar and sharply beautiful. After all, she reasoned, Carolina had thrown her over, and even if their betrothal was a sham, it was becoming less of an unpleasant sham day after day. 

(Even if he _was_ a Capulet.)

It is really only when he follows her home, to her _real_ home, and listens to her rage against the Capulets who killed her father, then pushes back and lists his own dead family, that she feels her footing adjust. He takes her rage and tears and more in stride, and gives her back his own, and it feels like a gift of forgiveness between the two of them more than anything else.

(It’s starting to feel, more than anything, like a new beginning.)

+

To say the House of Capulet was surviving on crumbs and veneer was the understatement of the century. The Montagues had seen their star rise as the Capulets’ had fallen, and foisting both Cassian and his younger sister off the Capulet estate would be a double boon to the once-proud house, and if it weren’t for the prince overriding the Capulet girl’s consent in the matter, he might not have minded. He’d have taken almost any road out of town if it didn’t mean leaving Livia behind. He’d never looked to marriage, but he’d protect his sister from his uncle’s choice for her if nothing else.

And – perhaps it is his imagination – but Jyn seems to mind _him_ less as the days drag on. It is hard not to see himself in her, or her in him, as they search for the person waging war on Verona. He knows her uncle is still rich, but as the displaced daughter of the dead elder son, she has about as much standing in her house as he does in his. It’s what makes them disposable; mirrors to each other’s misfortunes.

Perhaps that _also_ explains her familiarity with taverns and brothels, and why she doesn’t blush half as much as he does when they slip inside. She almost seems amused by his discomfort in pleasure houses, but it’s never been a scene he’s frequented, and not one he intends to frequent now. Certainly not with…whatever is changing between them. No matter. The point is to find evidence that will free them and end this war, and if it means following her into a brothel or whatever other seedy place she knows, he’ll do it.

(And slowly, moment by moment – she gets under his skin.)

+

He finds her – or she finds him – and then the dagger he’d given her is buried in another assassin. As a watchman’s light flickers towards them, she catches Cassian’s eyes and gestures madly towards the shadows.

“Run, Capulet!” she hisses, stumbling away from the body and the light. “For the love of God, run and save yourself!”

+

So after all her attempts to spare him from the law, they ride, together, out of the city, after truth and the knowledge that could deliver or damn them all. Days pass on the road, cold and hungry, before the sanctuary of the abbey finally closes over them at last. He’s not romantic enough to dismiss all their woes for the warmth in his chest, but between the peril of the road and the peril of his uncle’s house, he knows he’d rather be here, with her. 

“Are you sorry yet?” she asks, breaking a comfortable silence to look up at him. She looks quite silly in a monk’s robes, large enough to fit another _her_ in them, and he smiles as he answers.

“Sorry for what?” he asks sincerely, and she laughs with amusement.

“That you came with me,” she says, speaking the obvious.

“There's nothing to be done about it now,” he says, and she shrugs.

“You could go back to Verona,” she says, and he tries to imagine it.

“After all this, whatever happens to us,” he says, his heart not in the answer.

“To me,” she clarifies, and he knows she’s thinking of the gallows once more. He wishes there was something he could say, or do, but by now his word is as worthless as hers would be if she were ever allowed past the city gates. “You could go back,” she adds, and he shakes his head.

“It's not that easy,” he says, and she scoffs. 

“I’m a wanted criminal,” she says. “I'm worth nothing to my uncle now. Or yours. So you won't have to marry.”

The thought gives him no pleasure, in this context most of all, and he sighs, leaning his head back against the wall as he hears the monks approaching.

“I won't have to marry,” he murmurs, for what it’s worth, and then looks down at her, smiling a little. “And I'm not sorry.”

+

He’d had to have a bath. Of course he did. They’d paid off the farmer’s inquiring questions – difficult enough with Jyn still dressed in monk’s clothing – and she’d claimed the solitary bed before Cassian could even raise an amused eyebrow at her.

(Which he did.)

If she was eager for a real bed, he’d gone straight for the bath. 

“You’ve been in there for ages,” she chides, keeping her back turned as he stands, wrapping a towel around himself. 

“Allow me my pleasures, Montague,” he says, cheery as she’s ever heard him. “I’m as like to be thrown into a jail cell as you for kidnapping when we try to enter Verona. This might be the last bath I’ll ever take.”

She rolls her eyes at the ceiling, stretching out on the bed and wondering if either of them will live long enough to get their message to the prince – or if Draven will even listen.

“You don’t have to come with me,” she says again, pulling herself up, and he sits next to her on the bed.

“And I told you I would,” he says quietly.

 _I feel responsible for you_ , she wants to say. She wants to say a lot of things; she wants to do a lot of things that only outlaws are free enough to do. Instead, she sighs, shrugging into acceptance.

“If they catch you, I won’t let them kill you,” she says instead. “I swear it.”

His eyes are searching, and silent, and knowing, but honest through and through as he nods.

(She remembers the honesty in them, even when he betrays her one more time.)

+

She’s curled up in the corner of her solitary cell, the last privilege of rank afforded her before execution. He’d had to bribe three different guards to get this far into the jail again – but this time when she sees him, she doesn’t cast him the surly look he’d gotten the first time around. All explanations are fruitless now though; now, when she’s about to be lost forever.

“No matter,” she breathes when he finishes his sorry tale of failure. Her eyes are shining, a touch of defiance in the face of death as she tries a small smile, hopeless.

“No matter?!” he echoes, gripping the cell bars tightly. She loops her fingers through his, clutching the steel as she speaks, full of emptiness.

“I was foolish enough to think I could heal our city. Make my cousin’s death mean something. Clear my father’s name.” She pauses, dropping her eyes from his as he protests. “Perhaps when they kill me, Verona might be healed,” she adds, and steps closer. The bars are so wide she could rest her head against his chest with ease. “And you can go and be happy.”

“I won’t _be happy_ ,” he says, his voice breaking. He doesn’t ever break, but now he can feel all hope slipping away from him; now, as the hour ticks closer.

“Leave me and let me die, Capulet,” she says, meeting his gaze again. There’s a wisp of a smile again, and he can’t imagine what for. “You can go and serve the prince. That is the life you want. That is who you trust.”

His hands tighten in hers, their fingers clasped together almost painfully.

“I trust _you_ ,” he answers, every word a vow, and her eyes flicker down, briefly, from his eyes.

(They meet halfway, a kiss overflowing with defiance and hope and heartbreak all at once, through the bars and beyond the pallor of a death sentence; a lifetime of kisses in one brightly lit moment – )

And then – gone.

+

 _Not_ gone.

She lives – Draven dies – and this time they ride to Venice, to rescue, as the cries leap up over Verona, mixing with smoke and the sound of battle.

_The New Prince is here!_

They ride hard, fast, and free, but they aren’t fleeing. Not this time.

(This time, they’re coming home.)

 _Finis_.

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by grexigone and then filled as part of Rebel Captain Week 2018. [Aesthetic post here!](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/post/175809731304/rebel-captain-week-2018-day-three-alternate)


End file.
